The Compass
by The Tox
Summary: Armin offers him a world unimaginable. They share a dream with a kiss, and see places built around fantasies when they touch. Armin/Eren.


As if though the blue sky had been hidden beyond dark clouds for centuries, with sunshine long forgotten. Armin had described the world beyond the walls in such terms to him. When Eren kissed him, he felt like he could see it. With his tongue against Armin's, he could picture the endless water known as the ocean, and he could see the mountains which reached higher than the walls themselves. With their bodies flushed against each other, he could see animals running wild, swarms of birds in colours unimaginable, and tresses of green gress reaching something known as the horizon.

As if though Armin's body itself was a key to the outside world. To experience the unknown, Eren had to delve into it, and as he kissed Armin's skin, caressed his body, stroked his fingers through his hair and thrust into him, he could taste, smell, see and feel an entirely new reality. Inside of Armin, he was outside of every wall, and stood free in a land of fantasy.

The first kiss had given him only a taste. He had kissed Armin and tasted salt, and remembered the story Armin had told of something called the sea, a source of salty water which never ended. With the next kiss he had seen the water, and with a third kiss he had smelt it.

The fields he had seen when Armin had taken off his shirt, and Armin's mouth on his neck, tentatively kissing the skin, had given him the sound of silent winds blowing over them.

Every breath Armin had taken from him with kisses and touches, and every breath Eren had stolen from him with licks and caresses, had given them a piece of something called freedom. When Armin's hand had been around his sex and his body had been under him, Eren had seen the horizon. When he had reached his peak inside of Armin's warm body, he had felt the rumblings of the ground known as earthquakes, and he had seen the mountains of gods.

Two pair of lips, melding together as one, a shared breath, a mismatched gasp, a hickey left on the nape of one's neck, the red mark on one's stomach. A rising sun, melting into the ocean's horizon, a free wind sweeping across a grassy field, a mismatched lcloud on the starry skies, a crater on the earth, a red speck of flowers by the outskirts of a beach. There was no distinction between these kinds of beauties to Eren, and no distinction between the dreams, and the now.

With each occasion of love, it became clearer to Eren that the taste of Armin was synonymous with the taste of being free. Just like living in the captivity of the walls, he had always been so close to what he wanted. Armin's mouth held all the answers when he dared to invade. The unknown, the unimaginable, the unbelievable. The sensation of discovery; he had found this in Armin, when he had leant forward, told Armin that he needed to be careful, told him that he was not allowed to die, and when Armin had leant towards him, saying you too, and accidently brushed his lips against Eren's. And so the ocean had met the fire of a human will, and a new world had been discovered.

A moment apart became a new kind of hell for Eren. His moments away from Armin left him in imprisonment worse than the walls themselves, and the terror of losing Armin became bigger than the titans. But as soon as he could even see him he saw the seas in Armin's eyes, and the wind in his hair, and felt the warmth of the impossibly hot places called deserts when Armin's hand touched his arm in a comforting, gentle expression of hello.

The freedom Eren and Armin had was a fleeting thing, and was an escape from reality only for temporary moments. After each time they kissed, each time they touched, each time they lay together they were forced back into the confines of the walls again. The threat of the titans, the mystery surrounding Eren's true form and the tall walls encircling them since birth became facts again as soon as they had to break apart. Eren felt the chains around his neck when Armin donned his clothes, and could taste the steel in his mouth after the parting kisses. Leaving their shared bed for the first time had left Eren feeling blindfolded and bound, and tossed into a dungeon. But each disappointing ending became a little less painful, as they felt promising of an encore, of more beauty and discovery.

It would not last forever, but Eren did not know this. He indulged over and over again in the places beyond the walls and let Armin steal his breath without restraint. He marked the unknown world with his mouth and mapped it with his tongue, and thought only of the sweet, fierce existence of the now. An illusion of a world free from threats and evil. A delusion of a world free from walls. He would take whatever was offered, and sometimes more than that, because he knew in his heart that it was right.

And so Eren kissed Armin again, and tasted water. And he looked into Armin's eyes and saw something called hope.


End file.
